Raising a Sadist
by JuLeopard
Summary: What was the life of serial killer Chester Hardwick before Reid and Hotch went to interview him? One-shot


**Hi so this is my first fanfic! (Please don't gasp in horror and run away at that last sentence)**

**This was actually a school project but I managed to turn it into a criminal minds thing because I love the show so much!**

**It would mean so much to me if you review 3**

**Please tell me if I'm any good? Maybe I can write something else **

**Thanks so much!**

"NO!" My mother screams. "WHY ARE YOU ABANDONING US!?" She is screeching at my father, who is trying to keep his cool. He has to go to war, it is inevitable: for him, there is no choice. Father and Mother had fallen in love at the ripe age of 18, and she had accepted his decision to join the military. He always tells us that to live with himself, and his own father's military death, he has to serve in the army. Mother had been completely accepting of this… until now. Now she is fuming. I look up from my place huddled in the corner as she grows quiet. I am scared at the expression her face is taking. It is one of breathtaking calm… and then what is realization in her torn-apart mind.

"They've recruited you. SPY! TRAITOR! You – you've betrayed ME! LEAVE!" She lunges for him. My heart breaks at this. Father is leaving today for his service in Afghanistan. Why is mother being so cold? Just an hour ago she was saying how much she loved him…

Father simply shakes his head, whispers to mother he loves her as he restrains her, and walks out the door. Mother still has a livid look in her eyes, and she spots me. She walks over to me and whispers in a scary voice "Have they recruited you, too, Chester?"

I stand there frozen in fear. "HAVE THEY?" She raises her voice and slaps me across the face. Stumbling back, I shake my head vigorously. "No" I whisper.

"Good" she hisses, and storms off. Halfway to her room, she stops and turns back to me with a huge smile on her face. "I'm making some lunch now. Would you like a sandwich? Of course you would! She prances to the kitchen, leaving me alone and confused.

FOUR YEARS LATER

I tentatively open the door, listening carefully. I am listening for the telltale sounds of Mother – whether she is having one of her "episodes", or if she is the loving mother who cares about me. Will I slip into the attic without encountering her, or will she make me dinner tonight? I unconsciously rub my shoulder, where mother had attacked me with a lamp two days earlier. Ever since she fabricated an undercover group of people plotting to enslave all other humans on earth, she attacks when she feels someone has been "recruited". Over the past few years, I have learned to adapt, hiding from her when she has an episode.

Suddenly. I hear more than one voice in the house. I don't know what this means, and I can't bear to think it is something negative. I burst into the house, over to where the noises are made, and see my father, who left us four years ago. My very own father, the man who was the solid foundation of our happy family, and it is for this part of my father I smile. But as I gaze at my parents, one of which has scarred me, physically and mentally, I cannot smile. Father is the man who abandoned us, who abandoned _me_, to live with the demons that haunt my mother. I am forced to hide within myself each and every day of my existence… and for happiness of his return and the feelings of neglect and hurt I don't know what to feel anymore.

I don't know what to think of what I observe. Father is doing his best to comfort mother, who he came back to during the wrong time – I quickly discover she is having one of her episodes. I briefly wonder why she isn't being violent towards him, and then I realize she reckons he was hurt by the bad people. In her mind, he had fought against the recruiters, and that was how his arm got broken. In sad reality, he was trying to explain to her that he had been shot in the arm, fracturing his humerus. Mother will have none of it. Back when I was four, I always knew in my heart father would come back to us from the war. However, I failed to think of how war would change him. I didn't realize that finding the same answers his father had discovered, and not being killed in the process, would cause more than bones to break inside of him. And as the look in his eyes goes from warm and comforting to cold and unrelenting, I can almost hear something else snap inside of him. Something irreparable. Father leaps up, throwing mother onto the floor.

"ENOUGH!" He shouts, his voice echoing off the walls of our small home. Home is where I am supposed to feel safe, feel loved. Now all I feel is dread. "_I tho_ught my ba_ttles were done"_, he hisses, and I can see tears in his eyes as he stormed up the stairs. Mother stares after him, and then simply curls into an unresponsive ball. The swirling storm of emotion inside of me has no idea where to go, but there is a nagging feeling that I can't ignore in the back of my head. I stop and listen to it, my conscience telling me what I should do. I have never been able to ignore this voice in my head, and it always leads me to do the thing that makes me happy. Right now, it tells me that I have had enough. Enough of my mother breaking down and not being there for _me._ What about me? Why does everyone look past me? The teachers at school tell us to be ourselves and do what makes me happy and I do what I want and nobody pays attention to me. If I stopped existing nobody would even notice… I stare at my mother. My family is pathetic. I have to be noticed. It is what I want.

And I do what I want.

THREE YEARS LATER

Hot. So hot. A smile tugs at my mouth as I watch the inferno that I have created. I close my eyes, imagining my emotionally unstable father and pathetic excuse for a mother inside the building, screaming and hitting things. Beating each other up, looking for an outlet for their rage. All I am is their outlet, receiving fear, and psychotic breaks, and distrust, and rage… and I use it. Fire. On a recent school camping trip, we roasted marshmallows by the fire. The fire, which I wanted to light myself, but the teacher in charge scolded me with advisements to stay away from fire. I had laughed silently inside myself, her response didn't matter, because she didn't matter. I was going to experience fire one way or another. And so at night, I had sneaked matches from the teacher's lodging and had a nice time setting the cabin ablaze. Nobody was hurt, but I didn't care. I had learned the wonder of playing with fire.

I open my eyes again as the smoke got more intense and drifted towards my nostrils. I gaze at the neighbour's shed, knowing there was nobody in there… but it was nice to imagine my parents suffering. Because suffering is love… I have learned that love hurts. You show someone you love them by acting out with passionate hurt. Passion is love.

When I let myself into our house, I realize something is wrong when Father is there with his shotgun pointed at my head. I freeze, watching him.

Father sighs. "Simon. It's only you. You can't come barging in like that! Try to follow protocol, please", he says. I grimace. Father is at war again, but today he is at war with himself. His occasional reliving of the war has gotten Mother and I hurt when he doesn't even recognize us. I start towards him, needing to end this before it gets bad.

"Father", I pleaded. "It's me. It's your son, Chester, not Simon. Now give me the gun." He just stares at me.

"I'm on guard, Simon. What are you playing at? This is no time to be joking. Now go get some rest, we are moving in at dawn." Father is completely lost, and I need to get his gun.

"Father, give me the_ gun." _I advance towards him menacingly, and a look of hardness comes over Father's face. In a flash, his gun is swinging at my face, and I fall to the floor.

"You'll be sorry when the Captain comes back, _traitor_." It's the last thing I hear before I black out.

When I wake up, it is cold. From my position on the ground, I can look out the window and see it is night. So what are those flashing red and blue lights? I groan I push myself up onto my elbows, and realize that police are still there with the neighbours. I smile, knowing they will never find out it was me who lit this fire. I chuckle to myself and get off the floor. I look at my father, who flinched at my gaze and kept sweeping the area with his eyes. Suddenly he gasped.

"Did you lock the door when you came in, Chester?" He whispers, nodding to the door. I sigh as I get up to lock it. "What did I say about locking the door?" He whispers sharply. "This isn't Candyland you know!" He watches me carefully as I go lock the front door. Then he simply nods and treads silently away. I shake my head, and realize I actually have homework to do. However, I don't want to do it… so I won't.

THREE YEARS LATER

I sit alone. In the high school cafeteria, surrounded by people laughing and talking to their friends, I sit alone. I am in the cafeteria, but I have no food. The only hunger I feel is in my eyes… for the very pretty girl, who would have no reason to know me. No wish to know me. Who would have a desire to identify with a poor scraggly boy with a perpetual air of suspicious fire-lighting hanging around him like a raincloud? Nobody. So I sit alone.

Nicole isn't like the other girls. She doesn't wear tight pants or crop tops or have a different hairstyle every day. Nicole is beautiful in the way that she always looks good, no matter the occasion – school play, costume day, she is simply radiant. I want her.

And I get what I want.

I like the way Nicole walks. She has a nice easy gait, not in a huge hurry, not languidly strolling down the street. I have experienced her walking many times, because I follow her to her house after school. She lives in a nice one story home, a home that I could only dream of residing in. I stop across the street from her house as she is let in by her mom. I go into a daze, daydreaming, just staring across the street at this gorgeous girl. I don't notice her mom get antsy, or Nicole explaining about my history of supposed fires, and I assume all is fine when they disappear inside the house. Smiling expressionlessly, I advance towards the right side of the house, where I know her room is. She doesn't need to be inside of the room for me to enjoy looking into the space – Nicole's room is like a detached part of her. A different part of my brain registers police sirens getting close, but I dismiss it in my contentment.

"Come on. Let's go", says a voice. I turn around to see a cop standing in front of me. I just stand there. And then he brings out the handcuffs. "Do you want to do this the easy way, or the hard way?" He asks in a condescending voice. It doesn't matter, because _he_ doesn't matter. So I stride to the cop car, let myself in the back, and hope my petty crimes isn't too serious for the grown-ups without a life who enjoy pretending they can control people like me.

My trial is short.

Nicole's friends told everyone how much I stared at her, and how I seemed to follow her around. Jerks.

My box of gas station matches were found in my coat pocket when I was brought into the station. People at my school as well as my neighbours gave testimony about how I liked fire, and how everyone was suspicious of my fire-setting fetish. It seems as though people actually noticed me. Huh.

Our broke family doesn't have a lawyer, of course, so I am given an inept court-appointed lawyer. Seriously, I'm probably a better lawyer then he is. I simply sit there, knowing these incompetent people around me are so beneath me… I simply don't care. I roll my eyes when the judge gives the sentence: two years in juvie. Yippee. Two years apart from my parents, and I'll be out without a hitch as an adult.

TWO YEARS LATER

I breezed through juvenile detention. Most of my fellow delinquents were there for possession of drugs, and I have my suspicions that somehow they brought some with them. Others were there for assault or other violent crimes. These were the bullies who thought that their muscles put them above everybody else – these were the people I ignored.

There was only one person who could grab my attention. Independent, strong, attractive. Amanda had been sent here for three years, instead of my measly two, for putting someone in the hospital, seeking revenge. Nicely done. She, like all other people, ignored me for the duration of my stay at the juvie center. Though I was always watching her.

I find my first victim at a coffee shop. The type of people I look for have to be alone, and be casually dressed. I want to meet these people. I want to interact with them, to not be ignored for once in my pitiful life.

And I always do what I want.

All my other interactions are ok, but my favourite is Amanda. She is a sweet girl, driven like me, and I have a good time chatting with her.

Then one day, on victim number 24, I get caught.

The police came with sirens blaring and the FBI and SWAT charged in with their guns and I am arrested. How am I arrested? How did they manage to find me and save my latest prey? I can't face the death penalty for killing all those people. I don't want to face the death penalty.

And I always get what I want.

One day I get my lucky break. They tell us the Behaviour Analysis Unit of the Federal Bureau of Investigation want to interview serial killers for their criminal personality research project, so I volunteer. They merely don't know I refuse to die in a week.

"You will be interviewed by Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner and Dr. Spencer Reid", they inform me as I am led to the interview room. I am silent. When the agent and doctor from the BAU arrive, I look at them and start jangling my shackles. So constricting, and I want them off.

"Could we please have these restraints removed? They are unnecessary," says the man with a scowl, Agent Hotchner. The guards comply, and I am left alone with them. "Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed today," he continues.

Before he can say anything more, I interject. "I will only talk to you if I can open that window," I say, pointing to a very small window in the upper corner of the room. The two men look at each other, and the older one nods. I smile, wanting so much to smell the fresh air since my imprisonment.

The younger one, the doctor, starts the questioning. "Can you tell us about growing up?" He asks. He looks so innocent. The other man is going through his files, looking at my victims and life story.

I look at them and lie. "I grew up in an ordinary household, supportive parents, good friends-"

"You're being untruthful. You grew up with a paranoid schizophrenic mother and a depressed father suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in a very poor family." I smile. They ask me more questions, and I feed them more lies, knowing they are getting more frustrated as they correct me.

"Why did you request to participate in this program in the first place, Mr. Hardwick?" Agent Hotchner says.

I look at them both, then gesture to the window. "I wanted to smell the fresh air," I reply smugly, watching them grow more irritated

"This interview is over," states Hotchner. He moves toward the door, pushing the button to signal the guards to let them out. Little do they know this is the last place they will be alive.

I smirk at the BAU members. "None of the personnel will be able to respond for thirteen minutes," I inform them. "The evening hours began at 5:00 and the guards will be busy out in the yard with the other inmates until 5:30. You see, I am supposed to die in a week. You coming here gives me a chance to live on. After I kill two FBI agents, they will never give me the injection. The truth is, my victims meant next to nothing to me. They were simply a diversion, and from the moment I decided to kill them, they were dead. They cried, they bargained, and it didn't matter, because they didn't matter. They never had a chance."

Agent Hotchner's facial features don't move as he sheds he suit jacket and pulls off his tie. The young doctor slides into a corner. "Unlucky for you, I'm not a 100 pound 16 year old girl," Agent Hotchner snarled. Ouch.

And then Dr. Reid Speaks. "I can tell you why you killed those people," he pronounces.

"What?" I enquire, confused. Nobody has the right to tell _me_ why I killed people.

"Your mother's bipolar and almost certainly an undifferentiated schizophrenic. Your father suffered severe shell shock in the war, what we now refer to as post-traumatic stress disorder. As far as I can tell he remained clinically depressed the rest of his life. Fifty-three percent of all serial killers have some form of mental illness in their family. In your case both your parents suffered from psychological disorders which they largely took out on you. They beat each other as much as they beat you, so violence became a natural expression of love. There's something called the hypothalamic region of the limbic system, it's the most primitive part of the brain. It wants what it wants, without conscious and without judgment. It's what makes babies cry when they're hungry, scream when they want affection, become enraged when a toy is taken away. In most children, a healthy relationship with their mother counters the hypothalamus and maps the child's brain for healthy emotional responses. Your hypothalamus never learned control; it still operates on that primitive level.

Your hypothalamus won't allow you to stop the desires that it wants, so you became a sadist. No functioning individual would comply with the painful actions you call love. The only way you can serve them is by making a partner compliant, making sure they do exactly what you want them to do. And you ensure that by killing them. Earlier you said your victims never had a chance... I think you know deep down... it was you who never really had a chance."

I stare at him. …Never had a chance?

Suddenly the door beeps and opens. "Is everything alright in here?" Asks a guard. Agent and doctor nod, filing out of the room.

Never had a chance…

A week later, I am strapped to the table. "Last words?" Someone asks me. I just close my eyes. As I feel the injection enter my system, my last thought is _I don't matter… I never had a chance._


End file.
